The Sudden Appearance of Hope - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Claire North (Chapter 35) #36

Chapter 35

It was not the first time I had been poor, but I was out of practice. I had assets, years of cash squirrelled away in the event of emergencies, documents and new IDs; but none were in Turkey and too many could be traced by Gauguin. How easily my little empire had crumbled, but strangely I didn’t care. I thought I would feel regret at the loss of belongings, and yet, informing the clerk at the airport that I had no baggage to check in I felt curiously happy. My shoulders rolled back, my head drifted up, and when the plane taxied down the runway, I looked out of the window and found that I was smiling.

I had nothing in the world to call my own, but I had a passport, a destination, a bargain and a purpose.

It wasn’t merely the £1.2 million that Byron promised upon completion of the job that gave me a sense of ease; it was the job itself.

I was going to Tokyo to crack open the little piece of software that seemed to obsess both Byron and Gauguin, whose name had haunted me around my travels between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. I was going to steal Perfection, and it was good.

I’d asked:

whatwherewhen: What’s your interest in Perfection?

Byron14: What’s yours?

whatwherewhen: They pissed me off.

Byron14: Is that all?

whatwherewhen: Reina used it, in Dubai. Reina died.

Byron14: So? Software didn’t kill her.

whatwherewhen: It told her she was broken. Every day a reminder: you’re not trying hard enough, not eating, exercising, drinking, being, buying — buying your way to perfection, with Perfection. Perfection is owned by Prometheus, Prometheus flew in Princess Shamma bint Bandar, a deal to be struck, perfect things, perfect truths, perfect way to be Muslim, perfect hajj perfect zakat perfect fucking lives made fucking perfect and Reina was perfect already, she was depressed and never said it, alone and never spoke, she was good and she was fucking good she was the best one of them all and

I stopped typing, made myself a cup of tea.

Byron was waiting.

whatwherewhen: I think Gauguin would have been happy getting the diamonds back and arresting me, if you hadn’t got involved.

Byron14: You may be right.

whatwherewhen: I made a mistake when I got involved in this. I stole the jewels out of spite, not professionalism, and here we are.

Byron14: Perhaps.

whatwherewhen: If it weren’t for you, I could walk away.

Byron14: I doubt that.

whatwherewhen: I’m forgettable — Gauguin would forget me. He’s more interested in you. He called you a killer and a terrorist.

Byron14: That’s his point of view.

whatwherewhen: What gives?

No answer.

whatwherewhen: You want my help; I hate being a sucker.

Byron14: The man you call Gauguin and myself were lovers.

The answer was so simple, so easy, that I thought for a moment Byron was mocking me. But no jibes followed, no sign in our conversation that there was anything other than simple truth.

whatwherewhen: And now?

Byron14: I doubt he knows what he wants. It is good that you dislike Perfection, and good that you blame it for your friend’s death. You are right, to a degree. It has no mercy for those who do not conform. But you should understand that what you regard as a mobile app is a far more potent tool. It rewards conformity with financial and social advancement. At a hundred thousand points your diet, your exercise habits, your interests begin to habitually skew towards that which the creators of Perfection have dubbed “perfect”. At five hundred thousand points, your speech, your hobbies, your friends are all beginning to be turned the same way. At a million points you are invited to join the 106, where everyone is as perfect as you, and by the time you have reached this target, you are perhaps very different from who you are before. Perfection taps into every part of your life. It monitors phone calls, reads emails, accesses your bank account, tracks your internet search history, uses GPS to trace your location, rides shopping loyalty cards and mines data on your purchase habits, has access to the microphone and camera of your phone, can monitor your sleep, your waking hours, your work habits, your leisure activities. At its most basic it is a tool for marketing. The services you use — health, fitness, food, fashion — the services which make you perfect — are all paying a handsome fee to the app for their referral. At the purely theoretical end of its operation is the truth that Perfection comes with a pre-defined notion of what perfect means, and “perfect” is beautiful, confident, arrogant, rich, pampered and obscene. If there is a new Illuminati for our time, then it is the elite of Perfection, and unlike the legends of the Illuminati which went before, the only purpose of the 106 is to feast and feed. Do you want to destroy Perfection?

whatwherewhen: I think so, yes.

Byron14: Do you know why?

whatwherewhen: Reina died.

She died and it is obscene. She died and I think, if I destroy it, she would be pleased.

Byron14: Investigate Rafe Pereyra-Conroy. Visit the treatment centres, learn how they work. Find Filipa Pereyra-Conroy in Tokyo. She has seen the future.

I wondered for a moment if I was working for a madman, a fanatic.

A fanatic who had access to money and passports was still useful, regardless of his beliefs. The only reason Byron14 remembered me was because our interaction was digital, a thing recorded in words and symbols. I could back away whenever I chose, without ill-effect. If I wished to.

whatwherewhen: I am a woman.

Byron14 took longer to reply than he had on any message we had shared until that time.

Byron14: Yes.

whatwherewhen: So are you.

Silence again.

Byron14: We are in business, whatwherewhen. That is all.

So saying, she signed off, and seventy-two hours later, I looked down on the East China Sea, and wondered what it was that I had wrought.